The Vegetable Plot - March

‘Springtime is the land awakening, the March winds are the morning yawn.’ Lewis Grizzard 

Whatever the weather is doing there’s a host of vegetables you can start sowing indoors in a warm room or in heated propagators. Tomatoes, sweet peppers, chilli peppers and aubergines are high on the list. When the ground warms up you can get going outside by removing over-wintered greens from the vegetable plot. 

Freeze any extra vegetables such as spinach and beans for later. 

When the soil temperature gets up to 7C (45F) you can start sowing vegetable seeds. Broad beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflowers, lettuce and peas can get you off to a good start. Make successions sowings – sowing cabbages and cauliflowers every couple of weeks will keep the vegetables coming when you need them.

 Prepare the ground and make trenches for potatoes Put manure or compost in the bottom, plant tubers and earth up, adding fertiliser as you go. Start globe artichokes, sweet corn, courgettes and plant out indoor-grown peas. Plant asparagus, force rhubarb and give fruit bushes and trees a good feed with a high potash plant food.  

• Use horticultural fleece where necessary to protect against frost. 
• Have a hoe handy for weeding between vegetables
• If space is tight grow ‘mini’ vegetables
• Sow kale, kohl robi, parsley, parsnips, radishes, seakale, shallots, spinach, swede, tomatoes and turnips
• Under glass sow asparagus, cucumbers, dwarf French beans, leeks, lettuces, marrows, melons, onions, parsley, peas, rhubarb, seakale, tomatoes
• Divide and re-plant chives in a warm, sheltered position
• Prune back autumn fruiting raspberries to ground level
• Mulch the soil around fruit bushes and trees to contain weed growth and maintain moisture